Keep sex offenders on tight leash

Check out my column today in the Los Angeles Daily News, "If ever released, sex offenders need tracking" -- the operative word being "if" released, as I explain recidivism rates and offer some shocking stats:

"... But whereas rehab programs for a two-bit criminal can head off future offenses with job or life-skills training, the sex offender essentially has to be rewired. This offender is not suffering from a momentary lapse of judgment, like stealing beer from the 7-Eleven.

So why would a treatment program work, as opposed to institutionalization? And who in our communities is going to be the guinea pig, the test case for whether or not that treatment has worked?

A 2001 report from the U.S. Department of Justice's Center for Sex Offender Management included an especially frightening conclusion from a 2000 study: 'Polygraph examinations on a sample of imprisoned sex offenders with fewer than two known victims (on average) found that these offenders actually had an average of 110 victims and 318 offenses.' Another polygraph study in 1999 found that a sample of imprisoned sex offenders had been committing sex crimes for 16 years on average before getting caught.

This fresh debate over sex-offender sentencing also brings up important questions about the purpose of incarceration. The catchphrase 'paying one's debt to society' sounds nice but holds little weight with citizens who are more concerned about what threat the debt-payer will be to their communities. ..."

Read the whole thing!

Comments

[Tugboat Phil]

This is something I've never understood. How, under our system of paying ones debt to society, can you monitor someone that has served their sentence? If they need monitoring, then keep them in the cell. You will ALWAYS know where they are.

I don't think that abuse cases arising from a custody battle should fall under the same catgory of offense as these habitual predators. These guys need to be locked up forever, or executed.

If there were true justice in our system, they would be gang raped and then killed. For what they have done to untold numbers of children, I find that neither cruel nor unusual.

[ned]

I believe the prisons exist to keep these offenders separated from society, permanently.

[Lewis B. Sckolnick]

Sex Offender sounds so nice - a bit like Parking Offender.

[RFTR]

Dennis Miller had a brilliant solution to the whole problem. He points out that some people are calling for computer chips to be implanted in sex offenders before they are released--but wouldn't it be even easier to keep track of them if they were six feet under ground? You wouldn't even need to put batteries in the tracker...

[Garry Lines]

Interesting! I think these guys need help in relationship training (most of them would rather be involved in a healthy realtionship with an age appropriate female - ask them), financial management, and any alcohol or drug abuse therapy. These abuses have been going on in world history for thousands of years and the worst offenders are generally those close to the family or in the family. There are events, stresses, and poor choices being made due to controllable circumstances - help these folks. Do you want to live next door to a murderer or a former Natzi or a person is so much different than you? Will the scarlet letter really work in the long term? We are suppose to be the caring country - the compassionate country. Let's find a way to solve and help and not to warehouse our troubled population - which actually costs more of your tax dollars and does not address the cause and fix this problem. Ignoring the problem and incareration is not in everyones short and long term best interest. Effective and supportive rehab is the best answer - let's keep working to find the best ways. If not, shame on us - by the same way you judge it will be judged against you! Garry.

[Bill]

'Want a solution to keep released sex predators from raping children again? Castrate them -- both men and women.

Bill